Australian TV Plays: The Dock Brief (27 Jan 1960)

More English drama, this time the famous play by John Mortimer, which really kicked off his theatrical career.

It's a wonderful piece of writing and a splendid showcase for two actors.

There was no need for the ABC to make this, the BBC version would have sufficed. But that was the way back then.

Premise

The barrister Morgenall is given a brief to defend a bird seed seller, Fowle, accused of murdering his wife.

Morgenall has never defended anyone before.

Cast

Reg Lye as Fowle
Moray Powell as Morgenhall

Original radio play

The play was originally devised for radio.

Mortimer was a novelist and barrister and got the idea for the play from the real-life practice of the Dock Brief, where criminals could pick a barrister to defend them.

Mortimer wrote in his memoirs Clinging to the Wreckage that "I wanted to say something about the lawyer's almost pathetic dependence on the criminal classes, without whom he would be unemployed, and I wanted to find a criminal who would be sorrier for his luckless advocate than he was for himself."

Mortimer was established as a novelist and a theatre goer but not a playwright, then. He wrote he enjoyed writing the play for actors "at a new level of reality, one that was two feet above the ground."

Mortimer said he had no trouble writing for the barrister but struggled writing the criminal until the director Nesta Pain said the criminal was the sort of person who would "never use one word when six could do".

The play was first performed as a radio play on the BBC on 16 May 1957 for the Third Programme. Michael Hordern played Morganhall and David Kossoff played Fowle.

The play was well received, as you can imagine - his super power as a writer was stories about the law. (NB originally Mortimer was a divorce barrister but he moved into crime later. Both were the more "human" aspects of the law.)

Mortimer says the BBC awarded him a bonus of £20.

1957 TV Version

Following on from the success of the radio adaptation, the BBC produced a version for television. It aired in September 1957 and again featured Hordern as Morganhall.

The ABC may as well have shown that. It's great everyone got work... but... why do an Australian version? They showed this on the ABC in 1964.

1958 Stage play

A stage play version was performed in 1958 on a double bill with another Mortimer play, What Shall We Tell Caroline?

The play was popular; it did not have a long run but it launched Mortimer as a playwright and led to offers to write screenplays. It was performed on Broadway in 1961.

I've read the play and it's hilarious. Very clever. An ideal piece of short drama. Not really suitable for feature length treatment.

There was also a feature film in 1962 with Peter Sellars and Richard Attenborough. It felt padded but has two marvelous lead performances. It's hard to miss with those roles, if cast right.

Other Australian Productions

A radio version of the play had been performed in Australia the previous year. It was done again on the ABC in 1962.

Australian TV Production

The play was made in Sydney under the direction of Ray Menmuir.

Menmuir said "as first seen the characters are quite comical but as the play progresses we begin to laugh with them rather than at them."

Douglas Smith designed the set which consisted of two areas: the prison cell and the imaginary courtroom. Special effects were used to create a "courtroom of the imagination" for a later scene.

Reg Lye specialised in "suzzy little men" so would've been perfect casting.

Tom Jeffrey wrote about this for Metro Magazine. (He also wrote about Richard II.)

Dock Brief was quite a different production. It was an intimate two-hander with two small sets: the cell and the courtroom. Ray and his lighting director, Harry Adams, devised a really experimental and innovative use of lighting and minimal sets for the play. Reg Lye played the criminal that Moray Powell, the barrister, had to defend. Ray’s deft direction of these fine actors created a very moving performance of the play.

Tom also spoke about this in his oral history with the NFSA>

what he did was with Harry Adams who was the Lighting Director, he created a really interesting transition between the cell and the court and the dock. Ah Moray Powell played the the ah the lawyer who was given the brief to defend Reg Lye who was the prisoner and it was a it was a really ah innovative use of lighting and ah and camera in a studio setting and I was fascinated by that. Ah there were a couple of operas that we also being done too which were very very interesting and the use of mime and so forth.

Broadcast

It aired in Sydney on 27 Jan and in Melbourne on 17 February.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald called it "beautifully acted" praising Menmuir's "admirably deft and very imaginative production."

The Woman's Weekly called it "TV at its entertaining best".

Reviews for the show were quoted in a 1960 hearing into TV licences. See here. Critics do matter!